Re: [ALOCHONA] 8th May a comparative discussion: Begum Rokeya and Taslima Nasreen

Begum Rokeya was a pioneer and productive for her community. Taslima Nasreen is a distraction and destructive for her community. Now she lives in India and causing deaths and chaos in India as well. It seems like she thrives on chaos and destruction.

 

I have read Taslima's book(Few of them) and read some of her articles. I feel comparing her with Begum Rokeya is an insult to Begum Rokeya.

 

Although I do not see much merit in Taslima, I feel that way she was treated was wrong as well. She should have been invited to a discussion with Islamic scholars in open forum and people could have easily seen that, Taslima does not have much to offer to us. Our over zealous "maulanas" made her famous. We should not pay attention to any "Attention monger" and get away from our goal to build a country we can be proud of. We are not where we should be as far as empowerment of women is concern but we should recognize that we made some progress and we should keep working towards a better day.

 

--Quazi

-----Original Message-----
From: haque@berlin.com
To: alochona@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tue, Mar 9, 2010 9:32 pm
Subject: [ALOCHONA] 8th May a comparative discussion: Begum Rokeya and Taslima Nasreen

 

People of Bangladesh had celebrated the International Woman's Day yesterday with a dew respect. On 9^th December we would also commemorate the Begum Rokeya day in memory of the First Muslim Women Educationist who fought for the equal rights of man and woman in Bengal.

 

Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain was died on 9 December 1932; she was born in 1880 in a village called Pairaband in the district Rangpur. Widely regarded as Bengal's earliest and boldest feminist writer, Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain was a pioneering and creative educationist and social activist, and the school she founded in Kolkata, the Sakhawat Memorial School for Girls, still thrives.She was also a social activist, who organized middle-class women in undertaking slum development and training poor women in incomegenerating activities.

 

Her style of writing was in a way to raise popular consciousness; she used humour, irony and satire to focus attention on the injustices faced by Bengali Muslim women. She criticized oppressive social customs forced upon women in the name of religion, asserting that the glory of God could be best displayed by women fulfilling their potential as human beings.

 

She wrote several novels and essays, her best known publications are Sultana's Dream (1905), Padmarag (1924), Motichur (1903) and Abarodhbasini (1931). Sultana's Dream, written in English (to test her proficiency in English), is a delightful ironical and satirical work set in Ladyland, where the men are in curtain „purdah" and the women go out and work.

 

And the irony of Bengali history is that, what Begum Rokeya achieved at the end of 19th century as a pioneer of women's liberation movement in undivided Bengal; Taslima Nasreen - a writer on trial - did not achieve even at the end of 20th century. Taslima has been rejected by the same Bengali society after 100 years. Does Taslima push the boundaries of religious tolerance?

 

-Mir Monaz Haque, Berlin

 

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